


What Became of the Scribe?

by purelycoincidentalcats



Category: The Hobbit (Jackson Movies), The Hobbit - All Media Types
Genre: M/M, Moria, Post Hobbit, Pre Lord of the Rings, canon character death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-08
Updated: 2013-07-08
Packaged: 2017-12-18 03:21:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,870
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/875042
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/purelycoincidentalcats/pseuds/purelycoincidentalcats
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Even in his last moments, trapped in the mines of Moria, Ori does his best to keep writing, fulfilling his job as the scribe and keeping a record... Even when his thoughts are on other things...</p>
            </blockquote>





	What Became of the Scribe?

**Author's Note:**

> I tagged it as Major Character Death because... Well...
> 
> This was a little heartbreaking to write. I am sorry.

Ori was shaking, struggling to keep his hand steady where he sat, back pressed tight against the cold stone. He looked up and around himself, he was surrounded by dwarves, all heavily armed and covered in equally heavy armour, but he knew none of them save by an occasional familiar face. He curled tighter into himself, his hand clenching around his quill, trying to focus on the runes on the page, but he just couldn't. He just kept thinking how everyone he knew or loved was gone now. He was quite alone here. 

He reached out beside him, pressing his hand to the stone behind him, bare fingers tracing the carvings, swallowing hard and closing his eyes. Balin. It was Balin's tomb he was leaning against. Balin had already been lost, wounded in the first battles. Ori had held out hope that he would live, they had the finest healer after all. Oin.

Oin. He'd gone to the surface, needing to fetch water to help Balin. Their wells had since run dry, or been cut off. And... Oin had been taken by the Watcher, the giant squid like creature that lived in the waters outside the door. It was then that Ori had known not only was Oin gone, but Balin was lost too. Ori had been by his bed until the end, cried until he could cry no longer, and even at the end Balin had favoured him with a kind smile, taking a hand in his but whatever he had meant to say had been lost with his last breath.

That had been days ago, he'd been laid to rest as respectfully as could be afforded, and now here Ori sat, pressed against the last resting place of one of his dearest friends surrounded by dwarves he didn't know...

He could feel tears pricking at the backs of his eyes, and knew now was not the time to be crying. Taking a few deep breaths, he tried to quieten himself, he need to document this... Just like he always had. No matter how scared he was, he always wrote down what was happening... Now was no different.

Setting his pen to the page, Ori started writing, his script nowhere near as neat as it could be but there was no time... 

_They have taken the Bridge and the second hall; we have barred the gates… But cannot hold them for long…_

Ori fisted his non-writing hand, hitting it against the book in his lap before bringing it up and pressing it tight against his mouth. He sucked in another deep breath, holding it then letting it out slowly. Not for the first time, he wished he'd never come here. He should have listened to Dori and stayed in Erebor, but he thought he would be safe with Balin. Balin had been his friend, and at times like a kind mentor...

But it was more than his brothers that he'd left in Erebor... If he closed his eyes, he could still see him. Tall, proud, all broad shoulders and tattoos. Oh, he missed him. He should have stayed with him, or... Or if he had just come with Ori and his brother... But he'd promised his service to Dain after Thorin's death.

Ori made a choked noise, but was distracted from his thoughts when his quill jerked across the page as the floor of the hall seemed to rumble underneath him, making Ori's breath catch in his throat. Pen to paper he scribbled again,

_The ground shakes…_

The floor rumbled again, setting off everyone around him, the grumbling and muttering of the dwarves dispersed by the rumbling of the stone around them. It was busy and noisy in here, Ori only wished for a moment’s peace to write in his book and think of what he'd left back in Erebor before the end.

He didn't want to think of this, of the fear and death surrounding him. He wanted to think of large, work roughened hands cupping his face and holding him close like he was something fragile to be treasured. Of damp lips pressed so cautiously against his own, and a smile so rarely seen yet so warm it made his stomach leap as they parted.

He wanted to think about evenings spent patiently finding and tracing every tattoo and every scar that covered that hulking body, so strong and yet always so gentle with him. Evenings where all he could think of was that body over his, kisses grown in confidence from the awkward touches of lips, the feel those large hands all over his skin, leaving a burning, tingling trail in their wake. The sound of his gravelly voice saying things to him that Ori never thought he would hear from anyone, let alone in that voice that was built for screaming battle cries and barking orders, telling him he was precious and dear and loved. So loved.

He could remember, even now, how his heart had hammered the first time he'd heard that, the way it had been followed by an awkward shuffle from the dwarf so much bigger than him and a gruff grunt of "Well?" when he had not immediately replied... Though, of course he did. He loved him, and he said so. Again and again as those big arms came around him and clutched him close.

Someone beside him drew him from his thoughts by asking his companion if he could hear anything. Ori heard it, it was not the thudding of his own heart that filled his head now, but the beat of something more sinister. Drums echoing up from the mines below them, the sound reverberating through the rock. Ori put pen to paper again.

_Drums in the deep…_

Ori's eyes cut over to the door. The floor rumbled with more than just the drums and Ori could feel fear in the pit of his stomach. He knew there was something more out there than just Orcs. He'd heard others speak of it, the ones who had ventured deeper into the mines where none had tread for years beyond Ori's count. He'd heard the tales of a shadow, a growling and a light flicking like a fire that moved between the pillars, or seen at the end of huge dark tunnels... It was spoken of with fear, and it had made Ori uneasy even before they had been besieged...

Ori clasped his hands around his quill, swallowing hard. Part of Ori wished he was here, Ori would feel safe. He could wrap Ori in his arms, cradle him like he had the night after the Battle of the Five Armies, and he would even surrounded by all these other dwarves. Because when Ori had first mentioned something after they had shared a kiss outside of their bedchambers he stoutly told Ori the opinion of other dwarves be damned, when he had something so sweet and fine on his arm...

If he was here now, he'd probably say something else to pick up Ori's spirits, though try as he might... Ori could think of nothing. Maybe he would be as grim as all of the dwarves around him, and despite his strength, he would just hold Ori close and tell him that he was loved. Ori wished for it, he did, to be held again in that dear and familiar embrace, but at the same time he would not wish this on the one he loved...

They were trapped in here, he knew it. The doors barred what was outside from coming in, but that meant in equal terms that what was inside could not get out. There was no escaping, and that surely meant death. It was something for Ori to know that whatever happened to him here, in the long cold dark of Moria, the one he loved most was safe, living his life... That he would continue to do so...

Another rumble, harder than those before and the noise of the drums picked up, drowning out the sound of almost all else. Ori looked down at his page, but it swam with the tears in his eyes. Still, he managed a scrawled,

_We cannot get out. A shadow moves in the dark. We cannot get out..._

Wiping his eyes on the back of his hand, he snuffled despite himself. He said he wouldn't cry, but it was so hard. All he could think of was the strong arms he would never feel again, the broad chest he would never rest his head against, the dark eyes he would never look up into to see them filled with a love he'd never hoped to have directed towards him or have guessed would come from a warrior such as him.

But it did. He did love Ori, and Ori loved him. Ori gave a loud sob, trying to smother it with his hand, though by this point no one was paying the least bit of attention to the little scribe that was curled by the head of the Lord of Moria's tomb. Wiping again at his eyes in vain, he continued to scribble into his book.

He could hear them breaking through the door, the sounds of thick wood groaning and splintering, but still Ori wrote. Because if he didn't write, no one would know. Gloin would never know what had happened to his brother, Ori's family would never know... Dwalin... Ori swallowed hard, giving a wet hiccough. Dwalin... Not only had he lost his brave older brother here, Ori knew he was not leaving. He didn't know if Dwalin would ever see his book... But it felt like he was writing for him, so that he would know that even in his last moments, his little lover... His little Ori was doing what he did best.

He was writing.

The bar holding the door gave way with a thunderous noise, and the heavy wooden door crashed open, Ori scribbling one last crooked sentence,

_They... are... coming._

Slamming the book closed and clutching it to himself, he got to his feet, his eyes going wide at the sheer number of Orcs pouring through the door, swarming over the dwarves like they were nothing, no resistance. Ori was so distracted and, yes, terrified by the size of the onslaught that the slash across the front of his book caught him by surprise. Ori jumped, fingers clutching the book, seeing the deep gash through the thick leather tome, looking up to see cruel eyes set in a twisted face and he closed his own eyes tight, lashes damp with tears. He didn't want that to be the last thing he saw. He wanted the last thing he saw to be the things he loved most. His companions from their adventure, even the ones no longer with them, the little hobbit safe now in his home in the Shire, his brothers, Dori who had taken better care of him than he'd ever thanked him for, and Nori who he'd always wanted to be just like but never quite managed...

And Dwalin. The dwarf he loved more than he had ever been able to find words for...

Dwalin. Then a moments pain. Then nothing…


End file.
